An open congressional seat is a rare prize, often leading to spirited primary fights or, more often, to closed-door bake-offs between the candidates until the county organization settles on a contender.

For Lancman, Avella and Meng, running for Ackerman's seat would mean giving up their safe seats in the legislature.*

Weprin and Crowley, the council members, wouldn't have to give up their seats to run, but both would be unlikely to risk damaging their ties to the county organization on a less-than-sure bet.

*CORRECTION: The state legislators might not have to give up their seats, depending on when the primaries end up taking place.

The congressional primary is on June 26, and the legislative primaries are currently scheduled to take place September. A court recommended that they be moved to June 26—the same day as the congressional primaries—and the Assembly duly passed a bill to make that happen. But the Senate Republicans are arguing for August.

As one lawyer explained via email, "Petitioning for assembly/senate start beginning of June. Goes through middle of July…So a legislator can run for congress, lose in the congressional primary on June 26th, and have enough time to circulate and file petitions for their state legislative seat. Of course others will have started circulating petitions for that state legislative seat weeks before. Could cause political contretemps. But it can be done.